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Judging by all accounts, our state government has money problems.
The General Assembly will likely renege on promised increases in aid to local school districts, many of which are already hurting to the extent that even their graduates don't know how to read want-ads or make change.
Our prisons are as overcrowded as our highways. Both are deteriorating, and there isn't enough money for repairs, let alone expansion.
Colorado's social services department is months behind on paying medical bills, and Colorado General and Denver General hospitals complain of too many deadbeat indigent patients. Yet poor people just keep on getting sick, no matter what that does to the state treasury.
Apparently, if the State of Colorado were an individual,
it would be receiving those letters that I wish I weren't
so familiar with: To avoid a disruption in service . .
To preserve what is left of your miserable credit
rating . . .
Let us know when you will be home so
the process server can find you.
Our state is so poverty-stricken that even business leaders, the people presumably drawn to Colorado by low tax rates, have been pleading for a tax increase. What can be done to please them?
Water, we often hear, is the lifeblood of the
American West.
A water right -- that is, water that is
no longer being squandered on fish and streamside trees,
but has been diverted to a beneficial use like cooling
suburban sidewalks or evaporating from a reservoir -- is
considered property under Colorado law.
So water is a useful and valuable property, just like a typewriter or a tractor. Unlike other tangible commercial assets, though, water rights are exempt from property taxes.
Given the power of various water interests, though, the legislature is more likely to sell the gold off the Capitol dome than it is to close this loophole.
But a recent exercise of the water powers provides another suggestion for refilling the state treasury.
We could rent out our legislators. They're already for hire, but the money currently goes straight to them, rather than the state treasury.
Here's an example. The Animas-La Plata Water Conservancy District wants to build the Animas-La Plata Water Project. In the good old days, funding a water project was merely a matter of getting Wayne Aspinall's attention. After that, an enhanced federal deficit took care of the rest.
In these degenerate times, though, the Washington subsidies come harder. The U.S. government requires cost-sharing. That means a state contribution, approved by the Colorado General Assembly.
So in 1984, the Animas-La Plata Water District paid
$1,902.54 to the Colorado Cattlemen's Association, for
promotion.
The cattlemen -- it might have more
appropriate if this transaction had been handled by the
Colorado Laundrymen's Association -- then paid $1,902.54 to
the Denver law firm of Saunders, Snyder, Ross &
Dickson, of which Rep. Chris Paulson is a partner.
In writing to the cattlemen, Paulson explained his legal
services on behalf of the water district: Enclosed you
will find a bill for the services rendered by our law firm
on the Animas La-Plata project. As you can tell by the
bill, the majority of the time was spent working on the
phones trying to get the funding proposal passed through
the Senate in a way that would work.
It eventually did work. Earlier this year, amid the hoopla of a gubernatorial visit to the Four Corners region, it was announced that the state had funded its share of Animas-La Plata.
See how you can get controversial and expensive special-interest legislation passed when you hire a real legislator, rather than some sleazy lobbyist, to work on your behalf?
The state ought to advertise this special rent-a-legislator service, and take all the proceeds.
That's only fair. We already pay our representatives and senators a salary for introducing, advocating and discussing legislation. As their employers, we should be able to collect the additional money brought in by their labor.
And then everyone, not just a knowledgeable few, could benefit from the Capitol Hill Legislation Escort Service.
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